Made in Hollywood

For most people, the past events are too far away and they are not in their own plans. It is inevitable that they will be temporarily forgotten. When they are touched by people or events, this part of the memory can jump out, just like today’s Duke.

X-Men and Magneto, he should have heard Ian McLean mention before, but he didn't take it in his heart at all until he needed to find a suitable investment object and was touched by Gandalf and Magneto. Finally attracted his attention.

However, this also shows that he is only one of countless ordinary people in the world, and his brain may not be much better than others.

What does X-Men represent?

Then Duke asked Tina Fei to check that this is still the X-Men of 20th Century Fox. The copyright of a certain spider is firmly in the hands of Sony Columbia Pictures, and after the "Godzilla" series was interrupted , Sony Entertainment is preparing to put the spider on the big screen.

Knowing the current status of these superheroes, Duke naturally turned his attention to their parent company, which is the deadly opponent of Warner Bros’ dc comics, which is now called Marvel Comics and will be changed to Marvel (the Chinese name is changed) Of a comics company.

This company has just filed for bankruptcy protection a few years ago, and now it can only survive by selling the copyrights of its superheroes ●∈.

Since "Batman and Robin" suffered a double failure at the box office and audience reputation, the superhero movie that has never occupied the mainstream of the market once disappeared from Hollywood. After the memory of Marvel was awakened, Duke knew that "X-Men" "Will change all of this. When "Spider-Man" is released, Marvel heroes who are born with various defects and ordinary people's troubles will completely shine with the advancement of special effects technology and become the mainstream of the commercial film market.

Marvel Pictures. Even more than ten years later, it became the most dynamic and profitable production company in Hollywood.

"Iron Man", "Hulk", "Thor", "Captain America"...

Thinking of this, Duke suddenly discovered that perhaps Scarlett Johansson often appeared next to his mother. He had long been used to it, and he had forgotten Agent Natasha Normanoff.

That is the surprise now. Marvel will come later.

After determining the purpose, Duke once again sent Tina Fei back to North America, surprising her to investigate and contact David.

Of course, Duke did not intend to buy Surprise. For one thing, he could not squeeze all the cash flow into it. Secondly, the management of Surprise would not be stupid enough to sell himself to a director or a small film studio.

Moreover, behind this movie studio is their rival parent company.

Yes, amazing management and shareholders. I might not have the idea of ​​selling myself, but selling is also divided into objects.

Duke just makes people contact and surprises, to see if there is any idea of ​​financing or accepting foreign investment to get out of trouble.

According to the initial information obtained by Tina Fei, Surprise has been on the verge of bankruptcy. If it were not for selling the copyright of the character, it might have been unable to maintain it.

Like countless investment institutions in North America, Duke wants to invest in Surprise, and then holds a portion of the shares. Wait for the possible huge returns in the future.

How much did Walt Disney spend on Marvel? Duke doesn't remember clearly, but billions of dollars should be there.

Subsequently. Duke returned to the post-production of "One Hundred Thousand Rush". It is luck to have the opportunity to invest in surprises. If there is no chance, he cannot force it.

After all, he is not the center of the world.

Around mid-February, David and Marvel started formal contact. Since the cold winter of the comics industry in 1995, Marvel has experienced the divestment of several large investment institutions. Although they did not really fall into the abyss after applying for bankruptcy protection, they lost confidence in the investment market. They could only use the various copyrights of their famous characters as collateral except for selling the copyrights of their heroes. Exchange for loans from the bank.

However, the Marvel Heroes movie has never been successful on the big screen. It is just a paper copyright, and it is not much money from the bank.

The surprising dilemma can be said to give the two parties a basis for investment cooperation, but the amount of investment and the resulting share changes require a process of negotiation and wrangling.

Professionals will naturally be responsible for these matters, and Duke has never relaxed the various supervision measures that should be in place. When it comes to business transactions involving large amounts of interest, he will not trust anyone, even Tina Fei. .

The time is getting closer to mid-February. With the concerted efforts of Duke and Mike Dawson, the post-editing of "One Hundred Thousand Rush" was much smoother than expected. The abilities of both people have been fully polished in the past production. After the initial adjustment phase, the actual progress has been much faster than planned.

On February 20th, after adding the opening and ending credits, all the production work of "One Hundred Thousand Hot" was completely completed.

Warner Bros. sent a special team for this purpose to **** the film back to Los Angeles to prepare for the next trial screening and copy production. Duke will not return to North America for the time being. A lot of preparatory work for the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy has also come. Finally, he needs to personally check.

After more than a year of long preparations and the staff in various positions of the crew devoted a lot of time and energy, the preliminary preparations for the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy are about to be completed.

This is a huge and complex project. After the Lord of the Rings Studio officially announced its establishment in Wellington, Duke and Robin Grande began the final review of the completed work.

Even if it is just a review, it is a heavy work. There are too many aspects involved in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Apart from other things, it is not an easy task to design clothing and styles of different styles for every population in Middle-earth, just in terms of clothing.

There will be hundreds or even thousands of characters played by real actors in the crew. They belong to nine races with different body types and cultures. Each culture has an average of 500 costumes. Just this huge number makes People are staggering. In the past year or so, the costume designer has led more than 80 tailors, embroiders, shoemakers and jewelers to sew beautiful and functional costumes for each character.

According to the shooting plan, many characters must have 2 batches of the same costumes, one for the actors and the other for the stand-ins of different body shapes.

With just a few starring actors, the costumes can fill a truck-64 suits of Frodo, 50 sets of Aragorn, 30 sets of Ring Spirits, and 9 members of the Lord of the Rings Expedition need 150 travel bags... and theirs There are 20 costumes per person on average!

If the director does not participate in the preliminary preparations, but throws it all at others, it is just a problem with the costume, which will delay the shooting for a long time.

When shooting a movie, wasting time is actually a waste of money.

For those directors who are rumored to never participate in the preliminary preparations, wait for their deputy to complete the preparations, and then take them to shoot themselves, and successfully complete the super sales, Duke believes that there are only two possibilities, one is the presence of God, and the other is the appearance of Satan.

Even if it was the final review, when Duke walked into the clothing warehouse, his costume designer continued to introduce the design concepts and materials of the clothes so that Duke, the director, could be well aware of the shooting.

When approaching more than two dozen plastic models about half the height of ordinary people, costume designer Nigela Dixon pointed to the Hobbit costume on it and asked Duke to understand it.

"Hobbits admire nature. These clothes are made using a lot of natural materials such as linen. The design borrows from ancient European styles. The clothes are mainly made of green, yellow and brown colors that symbolize nature."

She walked over, touched the ornaments on it, and said, "Duke, you said that the costume should highlight the funny and playful side of the hobbit personality. I added some strange and obtrusive things, such as their pants and sleeves. They are all short, the buttons are big, and the collars are asymmetrical. I deliberately sewed their pockets a little higher, so when they put their hands in their pockets, they look funny."

With that said, Nigela Dixon made a similar gesture, which caused Duke and Charles Rowan to laugh.

The next look at the costumes of the elves is a completely different style. It needs to show their elegant temperament. The colors Nigela Dixon used are moss-like green, bark brown, and light crimson. , At the same time bring out a neutral temperament and ancient texture.

I spent most of the time in the warehouse, because there was enough communication in the previous work. Duke was basically satisfied with the design and production of most of the clothing. The clothing team did an excellent job.

However, when he came to the plastic model representing Gandalf, Duke frowned and walked over and took off the wizard hat. This hat inherited the usual European wizard hat tradition, but it was a bit too big.

"This is just a prototype..." Nigela Dixon came over and said.

Duke put the hat back, and said, "Nigela, I hope Gandalf’s wizard hat is a very impressive accessory. It looks very old and magical, but it’s not too exaggerated. Your design is worn by the wizard. It’s like a big ship on the head."

After thinking about it for a moment, Duke said again, "The design is overthrown, and what I need is a wizard hat that is both functional and mysterious."

Nigela Dixon immediately recorded it in his work log.

Finally, Duke saw the costumes of the two most important female characters in the film, Galadriel and Arwen Evening Star.

According to Duke's request, their costumes should not only show a metallic brightness, but also be elegant enough to make the heroine in the movie look like an angel in Middle-earth.

Among the queen costumes, Duke has seen Cate Blanchett's makeup photos, and the effect is generally quite good, and Arwen Evening Star...

The actress who will play Arwen's Evening Star has not yet been determined. Duke does not intend to use the former female model. The bloated and thick body of the other party does not fit the slender and elegant setting of the elves at all. (To be continued...)